1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electro-optical device, more particularly to an electro-optical device that includes a body of fluid and a dielectric layer with a liquid crystal material.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electro-optical devices, such as liquid lenses and electrophoretic displays, can provide an information display function.
FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate a conventional liquid lens 10 under off and on states, respectively. The liquid lens 10 includes a conductive substrate 100, a dielectric layer 101 formed on the substrate 100, and a conductive liquid droplet 102 disposed on the dielectric layer 101. At the off state (no voltage is applied), the surface energy of the surface of the dielectric layer 101 is relatively low, thereby leading the liquid droplet 102 to exhibit a relatively large contact angle (θ). At the on state (a voltage is applied), the surface energy of the surface of the dielectric layer 101 is increased, thereby resulting in a decrease in the contact angle (θ) and permitting the liquid droplet 102 to undergo electrowetting. FIGS. 2A and 2B show photo images of display results of the conventional liquid lens 10 under off and on states, respectively. The results show that the conventional liquid lens 10 suffers from poor clarity and poor contrast when displaying a piece of information placed under the liquid lens 10.